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‘LEADERS ARE visionaries with a poorly developed sense of fear and no con cept of the odds against them,” wrote Robert Jarvik.

Today we fervently pray that Barack Obama is a visionary who will forge ahead for all of us and with us!

THANK heaven for the wisdom of Rob ert Redford, one of the great men of cinema. He says art will survive even in a debased culture. Just as the Renaissance happened after the Middle Ages, art will survive. And Redford is being exonerated these days for his “half-baked idea” of creating the Sundance Film Festival. Film festivals like it all over the world are revitalizing the art of the movies from independents.

If you don’t think so, you haven’t seen “Slumdog Millionaire.”

IN THE r-e-a-l-l-y big world of commer cial film, the two-time Golden Globes winner Kate Winslet is being dished as she approaches candidacy for the Oscar in “The Reader.” She may score as Best Actress in “Revolutionary Road,” but dissidents are saying she’ll never win for Best Supporting Actress in “The Reader” because the latter is “a Holocaust movie”! Some critics don’t like her sympathetic portrayal of Hannah Schmitz, a woman who hides her past as a concentration camp guard. The British press notes that should Winslet return empty-handed from the Oscars, she’ll gain the dubious distinction of being the biggest female loser in Academy Award history.

Oh, please, art is art – no matter its subject.

NEW YORK’S own Jackie Rogers, the design demon of Lexington Avenue, is down in DC as the guest of New York Gov. David Paterson and his wife, Michelle. Jackie dreamed up Mrs. Paterson’s gold lamé dress for tonight . . . Oscar de la Renta tipped Barbara Walters that his dress for the new secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, would be pink and gray with beautiful gold embroidery, though she’ll wear royal blue in the daytime . . . Oscar praised Michelle Obama for her $148 dress worn on “The View.” He says, “Mrs. Obama should not be compared to Jackie Kennedy. She is far more committed to causes; Jackie was not. Michelle Obama is going to be herself and be great at it!” . . . And speaking of the historic events this very day, ticket speculators always say that the Super Bowl ticket is the hardest, most expensive one to get. But I’m hearing that inaugural tickets topped them by about double. Meaning? Well, it is beginning to sound like some people paid maybe $20,000 for a hard-to-get ticket . . . Incidentally, every lingerie store in the East sold out of silk protective winter undergear before the inauguration. The specialty ski stores had a bonanza of sales.

FANS OF the local TV legend Judy Licht are disappointed that her hot Full Frontal Fashion program was closed down by Cablevision’s Dolan family. Liz Dewey and Judy were covering fashion from London to Paris to Milan, and Judy was talking to the hottest designers. Judy and co-hosts Christina Ha, Lloyd Boston and James Aguiar are fielding offers, and folks say they are too popular to be cut off by the Dolan knife. Even Tim Gunn says he can’t imagine a world without Full Frontal Fashion!

I WAS standing in Le Cirque last week waiting for my lunch date, Bill Fischer, to come tell me how the rich and famous cope. Bill specializes in making the rich and famous happy! In came the Hampton Sheet’s Joan Jedell looking like the little newsboy. She handed me her publication saying she was “saving postage,” and there I stood reading about myself on three separate pages. Joan has a new column “Park Avenue Patter,” penned by Pamela Weiler Grayson, who fictionalizes happenings on the Upper East Side.

THE TRUE first wife on HBO’s “Big Love” is Jeanne Tripplehorn, and watching the show, you always wonder why her character puts up with all the devout and not-so-devout Mormon carryings-on around her.

In real life, Jeanne has become the spokeswoman for the World Monuments Fund. She wants to save the 100 endangered sites on the Watch List, even if her polygamous TV marriage seems shaky.

THE PALM believes the recession doesn’t mean people won’t eat steak. They have a new restaurant in TriBeCa; go down and catch the 150 local notables on the walls . . . The talk of the Palm Springs Film Festival was a Japanese movie titled “The Witch of the West Is Dead.” And who plays the witch? None other than Shirley MacLaine‘s daughter, Sachi Parker. Sachi spent her early years in Japan, and now she’s a big star over there! . . . Tonight we’ll see Stevie Wonder, Salma Hayek, Trudie Styler, Anne Hathaway, Susan Sarandon, Elvis Costello, Sting, Ashley Judd celebrating at the Creative Coalition Ball and drinking Pepsi’s new “Natural.” Yes, some of them will be on the soft-drink route. Others will opt for the hard stuff. Somehow I don’t see the “Natural” as a mixer! . . . They mourned the death of Ricardo Montalban, but only a few of the perspicacious noted he had been Loretta Young’s brother-in-law. Already they forgot Loretta?!